Do you happen to be around Nuremberg this week? If so, check out the Power Electronics Show, PCIM 2016. I’ll be floating around the show all week. Most of my time I’ll be at KEMET’s booth in building 7. The booth number is 7-302. Just ask for James. You can ask me about capacitors, electronics stuff, or just come to see that I really am bald!
Back in December, John Day’s Automotive Electronics Blog featured a post I wrote. The subject was KEMET’s (then) recent Automotive product introductions. Here’s a summary of the article.
KEMET has been working hard to meet the needs of automotive engineers in recent months. These efforts have resulted in several technology developments that will be of particular interest to design engineers involved with automotive electronic systems.
Firstly, the company made several key developments in polymer electrolytic capacitor technology. Recent additions to their high-voltage MLCC’s ArcShield line include new automotive grade parts rated for >500V and an X2-Rated Film capacitor that passes AEC-Q200’s qualification guidelines as well.
Read more on John Day’s Automotive Electronics about KEMET’s AEC-Q200 Polymer Electrolytic Capacitors.
Super excited that I’ll be speaking at this month’s Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic (HDDG) #11. The meetup is on Thursday, February 18, 2016. It should come as no surprise that I’ll be talking about capacitors–something I have a bit of experience on.
Also presenting will be SnapEDA CEO’s Natasha Baker. I’ve written about SnapEDA in the past post, How to find Parts for your Electronics.
One reason to come is just to see what the Hackaday / Supplyframe office looks like!
The awesome hosts on The Engineering Commons (TEC) podcast asked me to join them on Episode 93-Capacitors! They told me I was the first passive component expert they had on their shown. It was a blast talking to Jeff, Carmen, Brian, and Adam.
The unique thing, in my opinion, about The Engineering Commons is that it covers multiple engineering disciplines. A couple of episodes ago, they talked traffic. Since I am about to move, the episode on Garage Setups was great.
When I put together my list of 5 electrical engineering podcasts, I didn’t include TEC. Which was tough because it is a great podcast, and worth adding to your favorite podcatcher.
If you want to hear my answers to some common capacitor questions, check out The Engineering Commons Podcast Episode 93: Capacitors. For a more in-depth interview, don’t forget about The Spark Gap Episode 25 where I go into a bit more detail about capacitor types.
Although not all applications are safety critical or mission critical, reliability is still a vital consideration for many electronic products. Making informed choices at the part selection stage can help ensure the product will perform correctly over its intended lifetime.
When choosing capacitors, properties such as volumetric efficiency, frequency stability, temperature rating or equivalent series resistance are often the primary factors that govern technology choice. In these cases, understanding factors affecting lifetime can help engineers make sure the product will deliver the required reliability.
On the other hand, a long operational life may be an essential requirement of the end product.
Continue Reading the full article, “Capacitor reliability can be improved with the right materials,” on Electronics Weekly.
